Game of Thrones Season 4 premiere was so popular it killed HBO Go

Game of Thrones is just about to air its fourth series in the UK on Sky Atlantic but was seen in the US last night on HBO Go, well almost. The number of users trying to watch the season's premiere was so great it crashed HBO Go.

HBO, which charges users between $15 and $20 per month for a channel subscription, uses its HBO Go platform to stream shows online, much like Sky's Now TV. Users were, obviously, not happy about the show cutting out mid-stream.

An official HBO spokesperson said: "HBO Go did experience issues due to overwhelming demand around the premiere of Game of Thrones. The service has returned to several platforms and we are working hard towards full recovery, which we expect soon."

HBO suffered the same problem just last month when the service crashed during the final episode of True Detective. Fans were outraged then too. Some went as far as to suggest HBO does it on purpose to discourage users sharing their login information with non-paying viewers.

CEO of HBO Richard Pepler says this isn't true: "What we’re in the business of is building addicts, building video addicts and the way we do that is exposing our product and our shows and our brand to more and more people."

That said, one tweet about the issue read: "Why does #hbogo keep crashing? My friend's mom pays Comcast good money for the service! I shouldn't have to put up with this!"

Game of Thrones series four, episode one, airs on Sky Atlantic tonight at 9pm.